Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy : If Monty Python Wrote a Book it Would End up Something Like This

As I was digging through my “to be read” pile of books, I ran across this Douglass Adams collection called The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy which seems to be the entire Hitchhiker series. The reasoning behind why I had it eludes me. But it had been a completely stressful time lately, so I decided reading some upbeat British material might be what I need.

So I only read the first one to start. I’m a lover of variety so I intend to read one book at a time scattered through a mixture of other books. So I only read Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy first.

The book focuses on a boring Earth man named Arthur Dent, who is spending his day laying in front of a bulldozer so that it won’t plow his house down on city orders. His friend Ford eventually manages to convince him to get a drink at a local pub in the in the silliest Bugs Bunny sort of way. But at the pub Ford explains he’s an alien and the Earth is being destroyed in five minutes. Because Arthur is Ford’s friend, he bring Arthur with him. Arthur is then thrown into a universe of numerous strange worlds he never knew of. Misadventures then ensure. Within the book are clever and witty entries from the hitchhikers guide.

So the good? This is not serious. I typically hate things along the lines of space operas, so I was glad there was a sense of humor. Clearly the book was meant to be a comedy. Many of the jokes were hit or miss. The alien poetry torture was genius. Marvin, the depressed robot was funny. Why the Earth was destroyed is funny as well. And then there were jokes that fell flat because they were just too silly. The book played out like a mixed bag very much like a lost Monty Python episode.

The bad? As silly as the book is, the characters had no real depth. But the worse crime here is detail. The book is talking about other worlds and aliens with almost no detail as well. The descriptions are so poor that I could not understand what the characters would be seeing or what the world was like. Sadly that removed me from the story entirely and drastically hurt action scenes.

If comedy is what you’re looking for then these faults can be over looked. There are indeed a lot of witty jokes in here. But if you’re looking for something on a deeper level, this would be a pass. For me personally, it was way too silly and will probably not continue to read the sequels. But I give it two smoothies for those who want comedy alone.

2 smoothies out of Four.

Overall rating: If Monty Python Wrote a Book it Would End up Something Like This.